Yesterday Israel's business news Globes (16th Nov 2014) reported that third quarter economic results show Israel's economy has for the first time since 2009 contracted in the wake of the genocidal assault on Gaza. The decline in GDP reflects decrease in investments and exports of goods and services right across the board. Tourism for example is down 77.5%. The only anomaly is the export of diamonds, they actually rose by 53.3% thus helping bail out the Israeli economy at this critical time when no one want to touch this genocidal regime.

It would appear that most people, including many in the BDS movement, dont readily associate diamonds with Israel and its war crimes. The reality is that Israel's diamond industry is a main source of funding for the Israeli military ( $1 billion every year according to testimony given at the Russel Tribunal in Nov 2010).

Join us on Saturday 22nd Nov 2014 outside the global diamond brand De Beers in Bond Street as we highlight the fact that Israeli blood diamonds bankrolled the mass murder of over 2200 Gazaans this summer including 521 children as documented by the UN.

BACKGROUND

Israel is one of the worldís leading producers of cut & polished diamonds. It imports rough diamonds, doubles their value by cutting & polishing, and exports them globally via hubs in London, Antwerp, HK, NY & Mumbai. In 2011 Israelís net export of diamonds was worth $10 billion (30% of Israelís manufacturing export, Israelís #1 industry). 40-50% of diamonds purchased in the US in dollar terms are from Israel.

Most people donít realise that diamonds sold in jewellers worldwide are bankrolling Israelís war machine: ďOverall the Israeli diamond industry contributes about $1 billion annually to the Israeli military and security industries Ö every time somebody buys a diamond that was exported from Israel some of that money ends up in the Israeli militaryĒ evidence given by Israeli economist Shir Hever (Russell Tribunal Nov 2010).

In February 2013 over 50 Palestinian civil society organisations, representing a cross-section of Palestinian society, issued an appeal to women and men of conscience and jewellers worldwide to reject diamonds processed in Israel:

VIDEO FROM LAST BLOOD DIAMOND PROTEST OUTSIDE DE BEERS (AUG 2014)

We will, inshAllah, be tweeting live (hash tags @DeBeers #BoycottIsraeliDiamonds) from the protest with live photos being uploaded to our twitter and facebook page. So if you can't join us on the day, please help us by sharing the photos as they get uploaded.

"If there is an issue pertaining to lets say the Muslims in Arabia and the BBC or CNN want an informed opinion of lets say an uprising in Mecca - who will they get to speak about it? Now if you don't know that, there is a lot of emptiness in your train of thought. They will inevitably bring you some so called 'scholar' who is, when you look in to that persons background, a committed zionist and he is speaking about an Islamic issue! And we can go down the road like this, and have to submit after it all that we have, the world has, a zionist problem."